To Pope Leo XIII

E VI, 2983

Petitions for grants for houses for missionary vocations from the two highest institutions assisting missions: the Society for the Propagation of the Faith and the Society of the Holy Childhood.

Rome, 20 March 1879

Most Holy Father,

Prostrate humbly at the feet of Your Holiness, I respectfully explain that for many years, under the name of Oratory of St Francis de Sales in Turin, a hospice or seminary has been open where ecclesiastical vocations are cultivated in order to prepare evangelical workers for the foreign missions. In fact, a significant number of our pupils are now in China, Australia, Africa, and over a hundred in South America itself.

This institute, which currently has over 500 pupils, has so far been supported by the charity of the faithful and, in exceptional cases, by the help of the Supreme Pontiff. Now, the lack of material resources is causing serious difficulties in continuing with the proposed aim of providing individuals for foreign missions, and therefore I take the liberty of begging you to put in a good word for the Pious Institute with the management of the Pious Work of the Propagation of the Faith in Lyon and the other Pious Work known as the Holy Childhood, so that they may come to our aid with some charitable grants.

In this way, studies and vocations can be better cultivated, and other houses can be supported with the same aim of forming missionaries abroad, for whom there is such a great need.

Houses which are branches of the Turin Seminary are: the Hospice of St Vincent in the city of Sampierdarena, the patronage of St Peter in Maritime Nizza, that of St Joseph at Fréjus, that of St Cyr near Toulon, and finally the Oratory of St Leo in the city of Marseille. These institutes bear names that do not express the aims we mention, but everyone can imagine the reason for using such names.¹

This is the work that I humbly submit to Your Holiness, begging you to bless it and favour it in whatever way your high and enlightened wisdom deems appropriate. With the utmost reverence and deepest filial devotion and attachment, I prostrate myself before

Your Holiness

Your most humble and obliged son

Fr John Bosco